Here are the winners of the first three full-field events on the 2013 PGA Tour – see if you can tell which one of them is not like the others:
> Russell Henley, making his Tour debut after finishing third on the Web.com money list in 2012
> Brian Gay, defeating Charles Howell III and David Lingmerth in a playoff for his first win in four years
> Tiger Woods, winning his eighth title at Torrey Pines and his 75th Tour event overall
Now, most of my Sunday nights between February and October are spent watching golf on television, but a few weeks ago I’d never heard of Henley or Lingmerth, and I’d still struggle to pick Gay out of a lineup. Tiger is a different animal, of course, but the disparity between Tiger and the likes of Henley and Gay only continues a trend which augurs ill for the Tour’s future.
Consider this: in 2012, only three golfers with at least 10 PGA Tour titles won another full-field event (Woods, Mickelson and Els). In 1992 nine different golfers reached or moved further along the double-digit win plateau (Floyd, Wadkins, Kite, Crenshaw, Lietzke, Norman, Pavin and Stadler). In 2012, four golfers won events which took them to between six and nine career wins (Z. Johnson, Garcia, D. Johnson and McIlroy). In 1992, nine golfers reached or moved within the six-to-nine win level (Couples, O'Meara, Haas, Azinger, Calcavecchia, Love, Faldo, Frost and Cook).
To put this another way, 20 years ago the Tour encompassed a galaxy of stars, whereas the modern Tour increasingly means Tiger, Phil, maybe Rory and the odd Sergio or Bubba, and a bunch of no-names with ample talent but wafer-thin Q ratings. The Tour of 1992 felt more grounded, less dependent upon the hyper-elite and open to a broad range of excellent golfers with transparently different styles and personalities. At Torrey Pines, Phil finished 14 shots behind Tiger, but in its Sunday telecast CBS repeatedly cut to Phil’s meaningless shots regardless; such excesses were never broadcast in 1992, but their recent frequency underscores the Tour’s tabloid-like dependence on its mega-stars.
Why did I compare 2012 with 1992? Two reasons, I guess: one, I graduated from high school in 1992, and I fondly remember the Tour of my childhood as a golden age unsullied by Tiger-sized hype in which dozens of golfers not only regularly contended to win majors but could justifiably claim to deserve them. Two, Tom Watson was the US Ryder Cup captain in 1993, and he will be again in 2014; I wonder how he feels the American talent pool has evolved over the past 20 years? His first team was unspectacular, but it was solid and dependable, and it brought the Cup back from The Belfry; no team featuring Tiger or Phil has won in Europe since.
The PGA Tour’s most prominent advertising slogan is “These Guys Are Good”; too often I find myself asking, “Who are these guys?”, and, “Is ‘good’ good enough?” There are plenty of seats available between “good” and “Tiger” on the 2013 Tour bus, and I only hope more of the Sergios and Bubbas, Johnsons and Kuchars, Donalds and Roses regularly elevate their games to sit near the front. That’s how the Tour always worked before Tiger; someday, perhaps that’s how it might work again.